Divers earn 1-2 finish as swimmers start strong

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Dec. 4, 2009) – It was the season home opener and the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener today when the Occidental College swimming & diving teams hosted California Lutheran University at Taylor Pool. While the Tigers came up short to the Regals, 96-130, the women’s team showed promise and earned a few first place finishes in the 26-event meet.

“For the first dual meet of the season, we turned in a solid overall performance,” said first year head coach Alex Kuhn. “We had a lot of swimmer stepping up and swimming events they will not normally swim and they did well under the circumstances.”

The Tigers got a jump start this afternoon when Marisa Pulcrano and Sarah Sharpe earned a 1-2 finish on the one-meter diving board at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. Pulcrano scored a combined 218.05 showcased by her second dive of the afternoon, an inward 11/2 somersault that earned the highest set of scores on the day, 7.5’s from each of the three judges. Sharpe placed second with a total of 206.65. On the three-meter board, Sharpe and Pulcrano switched places as the junior transfer from Santa Monica College earned a 237.95 first place finish ahead of Pulcrano who scored a 202.05. Shapre’s best dive of the day came on her sixth and final dive of the day when she scored a pair of 7.0’s and a 7.5 on an inward 1 ½ piked somersault.

In her collegiate SCIAC debut Lauren Howarth swam her way to a pair of first place finishes in the 50 and 100 freestyle events. Her 50 free time of 25.87 was a shade over a second faster than the second place swimmer while her time in the 100 was two seconds faster than the next finisher. Claire Coddington took third in the 50 (27.00) while Audrey Akcasu was fifth in the 100 (1:03.28). 

Sophomore Mallory Ryan kicked off the 2009-10 season with a victory in the 1000 yard freestyle, finishing in a time of 11:28.46, more than eight seconds ahead of the next closest swimmer. Mallory then swam the 500 free in a time of 5:46.94. Freshman Izzy Mayer got her college swim career started today with a fourth place finish in the same event, swimming in 6:10.35.

Alena Morris was second in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:04.72 followed by Coddington in fourth, after touching the wall in 1:07.60. Morris and Akcasu finished 3-4 in the 200 free with times of 2:11.09 and 2:18.76, respectively.

Sara Mendoza placed third in the 100 backstroke (1:09.33) and earned fifth place points for Oxy in the 200 IM (2:27.03). Also scoring third place points today was Danielle Garcia who swam the 100 breast stroke in 1:16.17. Mayer scored again for the Black and Orange after placing fifth with a time of 1:24.00 in the same event.

The Tiger women capped off the meet with a win in the 200 free relay as Morris, Ryan, Howarth and Garcia combined to swim the event in a time of 1:45.75, 2.5 seconds faster than the CLU “A” team.

The Tigers will be on the road tomorrow when they travel to the University of Redlands to take on the Bulldogs with diving set to begin at 10:30 a.m. followed by the swimming events at 11:00 a.m.